Stephen Harper fights for Human Rights for Tamils in Sri Lanka , while he violates Human Rights of Canadian aborigine people- the First Nations.Posted on May 6th, 2013

By Charles.S.Perera

Why cannot Stephen Harper give equal rights to Canadian First Nations, if he has given equal rights to the Sri Lanka Tamil Community in Canada ?

If Stephen Harper has any sense of righteousness, his first duty should be to remove the Indian Act of 1876 to give the Canadian First Nations’ freedom to move away from their confinement in the Reserves. Harper should thereafter build them houses, schools, hospitals and give them the right to be educated in Universities and find respectable employment, and provide decent living conditions and treat them as “Canadians”. They deserve it because they were the people who has a history of living in Canada for well over 12 000 years. But Stephen Harper is instead obeying the demands of the 250 000 Sri Lanka Tamils in Canada who had been there for only 50 years.

Most of what is written in this article is what other Canadians say about Stephen Harper-the Prime Minister of Canada who adulates the Sri Lanka Tamils, and asks all Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth countries not to attend the CHOGM in Sri Lanka, in obedience to the demands of 250 000 Sri Lanka Tamils who had come to Canada only after 1983. They say to insult Sri Lanka, that Stephen Harper’s refusal to attend CHOGM in Sri Lanka is a” diplomatic slap to Sri Lanka”

A Journalist Rex Murphy wrote to National Post in an article, ” Rex Murphy:Vilifying Stephen Harper” in which he says:

“There’s something about Stephen. His opponents have many names for him “”‚ the majority of which are, alas, neither flattering nor meant to be.

He is a taciturn schemer, a theocrat mole, loose at the top of the Canadian political system, determined to bend Canada to his grim and twisted design, to curb the liberties of Canadians, to push us and our country back into some fevered neocon darkness. Politically, he is Dick Cheney’s illegitimate son. George W. Bush’s half-brother. He’s a lackey of the rich, and enemy of all that is good and Canadian. He’s in the pocket of big oil. He hates baby seals.

My, how the spine chills when some people talk and write about Harper.”

Rex Murphy adds:

” Then there are the many “faces” his enemies attribute to him, among them Conspiracy Harper, Vendetta Harper, Christianist-Harper “”‚ hope of the hard line, Doomsday-waiting Evangelicals, Secret-Agenda Harper, Tool of Israel Harper, Anti-Democracy Harper, with perhaps a little space for Secret Alberta-Separatist Harper. The caricatures belong more to the old style of detective novel when the villains, projections of untethered fantasy, were eerie amalgams of malice, supernal powers, outlandish ambitions and utterly unbelievable. Harper as Fu Manchu, as it were.

Again he says : ” Hating, mistrusting or dismissing Harper is not a transient phenomenon. A poll as recent as this week, seven years after Mr. Harper took office (during which he has not, contra naturum, transformed Canada into a gulag or prison house for the poor, artists, liberals, greens or whomever he sees as his opponents) reveals a majority of Canadians think he still has that famous but, by definition, unseen hidden agenda. Even though he is Prime Minister and has a majority, many still believe he keeps that damn agenda up his sleeve.”

Query: What’s the point of a hidden agenda that stays hidden? Will it still be hidden when he leaves office? If so, what was or is its point?

Less than 500 years ago in Canada there were only the aborigines the original inhabitants. Today they call themselves the First Nations. There are many groups of them. They spoke 53 different languages. Scientists affirm that they had lived their for more than 12,000 years. Today their populations is about 3.8% of a total of 31million Canadians of which 16.2 % are visible minorities and 80%whites.

According to Wikipedia today there are 704,851 First Nations (the original aborigines). 57%of them live in Reserves others in larger cities.

These people of First Nations live in most pitiable conditions in their racial confinement in Reserves even without clean drinking water. The government does not help developing the reservations into which they have been confined.

According to a report by Martin Lukacs in Guardian.co.uk, “Canadians have often turned a blind eye, having been taught to see the rights of aboriginal peoples as a threat to their interests. Dare to restore sovereignty to the original inhabitants, the story goes, and Canadians will be hustled out of their jobs and off the land. Or more absurdly, onto the first ships back to Europe.

This reminds of the British Colonial rulers pushing the Sinhala majority into the back ground and pandering to the minorities giving them important places in their Administration.

Lukacs further says in his report, that Billions have indeed been spent “”…” not on fixing housing, building schools or ending the country’s two-tiered child and services, but on a legal war against aboriginal communities. Every year, the government pours more than $100m into court battles to curtail aboriginal rights “”…” and that figure alone went to defeating a single lawsuit launched by two Alberta First Nations trying to recover oil royalties essentially stolen by bureaucrats.

Cindy Blackstock is a young activist fighting for Aboriginal rights in Canada “ƒ”¹…””ƒ”¹…” she has spent more than five years trying to hold Ottawa accountable for a funding gap on the welfare of aboriginal children in Reserves.

Instead of dealing with that funding gap, Ottawa has spent nearly as long searching for dirt on Blackstock. In total, it has spent more than $3 million trying to derail her bid to have the government’s funding policy ruled as discrimination against native children.”

On the contrary the Sri Lanka Tamils that migrated to Canada after 1983; their numbers today have risen to 250,000. They have more opportunities allowed to them than the aborigines First Nations of Canada, who are still living in the Reserves which they cannot leave under terms of the racist Indian Act of 1876.

The vast majority of Tamils immigrated to Canada in the last 20 years. Canada is now home to the largest Tamil population outside of Sri Lanka. Within this short period of time, Tamils have established a mounting presence in multiple aspects of Canadian life: business, academic, political and social. The Tamil business community has grown in leaps and bounds, with over 2,000 Tamil-owned businesses in the GTA.

But for the First Nations, the original people of Canada opportunities are not provided by the government purposely for fear of them one day challenging the government of the Whites. In an article entitled Canada’s First Nations: A Legacy of Institutional Racism Claire Hutchings opens her article stating:

“Sadly, our history with respect to the treatment of Aboriginal people is not something in which we can take pride. Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority led to a suppression of Aboriginal culture and values.

“As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in weakening the identity of Aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and cultures, and outlawing spiritual practices. We must recognize the impact of these actions on the once self-sustaining nations that were disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even destroyed by the dispossession of traditional territory, by the relocation of Aboriginal people, and by some provisions of the Indian Act. We must acknowledge that the result of these actions was the erosion of the political, economic and social systems of Aboriginal people and nations.”

The regimes viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

Jack Etkin, The Bridge, B.C., March 2011: “Mr. Harper is very likely a war criminal. In Afghanistan, he has forced Canadian troops to give innocent civilians to the Afghan police to be tortured. That is a war crime, but it is never mentioned by the corporate media.”

Finally Nick Fillmore, previously an investigative journalist and producer with the CBC, who is a freelance journalist and social activist based in Toronto. Asks:

So how does Harper tally up?

I’ve ranked, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 indicating how strongly Harper’s fascist tendencies are), my own impressions of Stephen Harper’s actions and policies. Please share your opinions and score in the comments section.

To keep things simple, just cut and paste the chart with my scores into the comments section and add your own scores.

Where are all the human rights activists very active in Geneva to bring resolutions against Sri Lanka, which has no ethnic problem, which had only been created by the pro-terrorist Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora, the racist TNA and the anti government NGOs . On the other hand in Canada there is a very serious problem of violation of the human rights and the denial of decent living conditions to its aborigines the Original people of the country.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group headed by a Canadian are apparently not as active as they are against Sri Lanka to put right the wrongs that are being committed by Stephen Harper’s Government against the Canadian First Nations.

However, the 2012 Annual report of the Amnesty International states, “In October, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a hearing into a complaint brought by the Hul-qumi’num Treaty Group, alleging violations of Indigenous land rights on Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. A ruling was expected in 2012.

There was little progress in implementing the findings of the Ipperwash Inquiry, set up to examine the fatal police shooting in 1995 of an unarmed Indigenous man during a protest in Ontario. Incidents at the Tyendinaga Mohawk community in Ontario in 2008, in which provincial police pointed high-powered rifles at unarmed protesters and bystanders, and the failure to conduct an impartial review of these incidents, underscored the urgent need for implementation of the Ipperwash findings.

At the UN Human Rights Council in May, while much publicity was being given to US Resolution against Sri Lanka, the more serious case of Stephen Harper’s Canadian Governments violation of human rights of the Canadian First Nations went un noticed. In a report under, ” Canada comes under fire at UN Human Rights Council Review it was stated ,

“”¦..We need to start addressing these things. We are guilty of human rights violations, we have a whole genocide of First Nations and we need to stop the arrogance and be open and critical to ourselves as to why this is,” said Michelle Robinson, a political analyst.

“This is not democratic this is actually a dictatorship so we do not have the right to point fingers at other people’s human rights violations, said Robinson.”

The Report further state:

“Recently, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was reportedly blocked from entering Canada by its Foreign Minister John Baird.

This comes, as it is reported that three to four million Canadians live in poverty, between 150,000-300,000 people are visibly homeless as well as almost four million residents experience hunger. “

MichaƒÆ’†’«lle Jean, a former governor general, is calling for aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians to “pull together” to put an end to living conditions in some First Nations communities that she says are comparable to what she witnessed in Haiti.

In an interview with CBC Radio Montreal’s Daybreak, Jean spoke about the role she played as governor general, the Idle No More movement and the deplorable living standards in many of Canada’s aboriginal communities.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who has been on a hunger strike since Dec. 11, says she is willing to die for her people and the First Nations people. (CBC)

Jean said she finds it troubling that so many aboriginal people take their lives because of a sense of powerlessness.

She told CBC’s Daybreak that conditions in aboriginal communities, such as a lack of fresh drinking water, are “unacceptable.”

“We have a Third World in Canada, and it’s with our aboriginal peoples,” Jean said.

Despite all this “criminal acts” of the Stephen Harper’s Government against the Canadian First Nations, John Baird the Foreign Minister of Canada, had made a strong accusation against Sri Lanka’s failure to be accountable. He had said:

“It’s not just Canada: the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association; the Commonwealth Human rights Initiative; the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association; the Commonwealth Legal Education Association; the Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association; Human Rights Watch, the United Nations Human Rights Council “”…” all of these people have come out and unanimously have said that not only has Sri Lanka not made progress, but in many instances, is getting worse.”

Baird appears to think all those Agencies he had mentioned are sacrosanct and are working on true eye witness evidence of Sri Lanka’s human rights violations. But Mr. Baird, all these agencies are funded by the anti Sri Lanka pro-terrorist Tamil diaspora and there is no “grain” of truth in any one of their accusations. Only way to get at the truth is by visiting Sri Lanka and see the transformation the country has gone through after elimination of terrorism.

If you were to go to Sri Lanka John Baird you will see for yourself how the Communities in Sri Lanka live in harmony with each other and how every area in Sri Lanka whether with a greater population of Tamils or with a greater population of Sinhala and Muslims are being reconstructed and developed with out any discrimination against any ethnic group.

You will surely be ashamed John Baird, seeing how Sri Lanka has dealt with the ethnic problem,. Where as you, who speak so much against Sri Lanka’s violation of human rights, do not seem to care that you have not been able to take the Canadian First Nations out of their misery living in intolerable inhuman conditions in the reservation allocated to them under India Act of 1876, forced to live even without fresh water to drink.

John Baird if you were to go you will have lot to learn from Sri Lanka, to solve your own human rights problem with regard to the Canadian First Nations.

Further more you will see for yourself, that the information with which your informants the Canadian Tamil Diaspora have been feeding you have no iota of truth, and that they have merely taken you up the garden path, and there is absolutely nothing for Sri Lanka to face censure by Canada or any other Nation in the World.

Baird has also had said ” the impeachment and sacking three months ago of the country’s chief justice and her replacement with a successor who is close to President Mahinda Rajapakse.” Both of those actions are appalling and they show that not only have we not seen an improvement, we’ve seen a deterioration in recent months and that is causing Canada great concern.”

John Baird in your latter statement you are really interfering in an internal matter of the country, without using your intelligence to understand the situation, but listening to your worthless informants who know next to nothing about Sri Lanka. The CJ is an Government Officer like any other, and if she commits any blameworthy act she has to be punished and in the case of a CJ there are special procedures to be followed according to the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Therefore with regard to the impeachment of the CJ, there is nothing for any one to point their finger, as the impeachment had been carried out properly in terms of the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

The President of Sri Lanka has the right to appoint any one as the CJ provided he is qualified for the Office. The fact that he is close to the President Rajapaksse is a most irrelevant point to raise, as being a friend of the President cannot disqualify a person otherwise qualified for the Office. The New CJ being Close to the President does not mean that the CJ is going to take directions from the President in his functions as the CJ.

We expect you and Stephen Harper to be more intelligent to take decision on your own without seeking the advise of the worthless Canadian Tamil diaspora even if it is to ensure that their vote bank will help you to be in Government at the next election and thereafter.

5 Responses to “Stephen Harper fights for Human Rights for Tamils in Sri Lanka , while he violates Human Rights of Canadian aborigine people- the First Nations.”

I salute Stephen Harper the Prime Minister of Canada for boycotting the CHOGM in Sri Lanka but not for the reasons given by him.

Its time for all Commonwealth countries Head of States / Prime Ministers to end this meaningless CHOGM and what better way then to put Sri Lanka as the place where all the arrogance and irreverence of the commonwealth ends.

The only Common Wealth are for those nations that kowtows to the white men rule!

This article has correctly pointed out how the over 250,000 tamils could wield influence on Canadian politics. However I do not agree the majority of these Tamils act according to LTTE wishes. I do believe the Canadian Govt’s SriLankan policy is controlled by the wealthy Tamil terrorists but they are probably just a minority within the diaspora though cunningly projecting themselves as a group able to control how the over 250,000 Tamils would vote. In fact there are many Tamils who do not support the agenda of the Tamil separatists but are supporting a Unitary SriLankan state, where all communities could move around freely without foreign influence. They do not wish another Libya, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria or Afganistan. So let us not play into the hands of the LTTE diaspora by considering all Tamils are controlled by them.

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